The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-11-05
TERRIeLE WARMING.
The Lesson Taught by the sad story oI
Miss sara Jewett.

Miss sara Jswett.
The sad story Of Sara Jewett's ILL
health and its cause, which has been
given with so much detail Of late in the
public press, has been thoroughly con-
firmed from the most authoritative
sources. It Is sorrowful narrative,
conveying warning which ought to
be needed by medical practitioners
upon tho one hand and patients upon
the other.
Miss Jcwett has been long and widely
known as an actress of superior ability.
She came Of All excellent family and
was % favorlte in the best circles of
society. She was upon intimate terms
in the family of the poet Longfellow,
and was everywhere esteemed for the
sweetness Of her disposition, culture.
taste, and refinement. She had
bright and promising career before her
which has been blasted. She Is to-day
virtually dependent upon charity and
physical and intellectual wreck. The
original story that the opium habit was
the cause of her misfortunes turns out
60 Se incorrect. She was not addicted
to stimulants of any kind. The Boston
Traveller has printed recently state
ment of her case by authority, from
which it appears that her present sad
condition was caused by the habit of
using chloral. Seven years ago, while
suffering from insomnia and nervous
exhaustion, an English physician pre-
scribed sleeping-powder for her, COM
posed Of orange-fower water and chlo-
raj. and to this the calamity is due. The
TrGveller says:
''There was the beginning of Sara Jewett's ILL
health and ill-fortune; and until medical science
is 80 far advanced that physicians too intelli
gent and too moral to prescribe the most appall-
ing and deadly dangerous Of drugs-until we see
that day. let us hold In charity the mistake of o
young, inexperienced woman, ambitious in her
art, and who gained such swift relief from fol-
lowing the advice of physician eminent and
honored in his profession. There lies the blame
the crime, for it can be called nothing else
that has cnded in such overwhelming disaster
for an artist whose future outlook was among
the farest on the STAGE"
If the statistics of the choral habit
and its ruinous effects upon body and
mind could be made public there is no
question that the country would stand
appalled, at the extent of its use among
weak and nervous women, and still
more at the terrible results of it. There
is scarcely person who can not recall
one or more of his acquaintances who
arc helpless and hopeless slaves of
choral or deadly drugs of a similar
l. sn1 foty 70 f1,<,x Al,
ness and exhaustion of overwork and,
what is worse than overwork, over-in-
diligence in the enervating practices Of
artificial social life. 1t is terrible
temptation, as its effects seem
harmless at first and it brings relief
and rest to the tired mind
and body. 1t is an insidious habit,
but once in it's clutches not one in
hundred can be rescued. 1t is all the
more dangerous as it does not expose
one to the disgraceful effect of drunk
cnness or other forms of stimulation.
Once the habit is acquired, however.
the victim is doomed to rapid physical
and mental deterioration until death
comes to the relief. 1t is probable that
physicians prescribe it because their
patients want it, but the patients are
not as well acquainted with its deadly
effects as their advisers. The least that
any honest physician can do is to warn
his patients if they insist upon it's use OF
the inevitable results which will follow.
To prescribe it for one unacquainted
with it is criminal recklessness. Un-
qestionably there are many women who
resort to its use ON their own RESPONSE
bility as freely as men use whisky and
tobacco. All the more necessary is it
that physicians should sound note of
warning so that its perils shall be
clearly understood, and that they should
investigate these sleeping .potions with
the view of finding something that will
produce the desired effect without
superinducing mental, physical and
sometimes moral ruin, or discovering
some other method of treatment that
will have the same result.-CAic ago